WHAT TURKEY HAS LOST.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume III, Issue 189, 26 July 1913, Page 4 (Supplement)

WHAT TURKEY HAS LOST.

ONCE OWNED NEARLY HALF OF EUROPE. The “Terrible Turk,” who may ho taneii <as tvpiiymg the Empire oi the sultans, holus om> record at i<«st which he is not likely to be deprived of. He has won and lost more territory than any other nation.

There was a time when the Sultan was the bug-bear of the world. Even little children shook in their shoes when they heard his name mentioned, and those people who lived near him dared not call theii lives their own.

But at last the tide turned. The Turk began to lose, and one great misfortune tollowed another .

Spain was the first hig bit of tho Turkish Empire to break free. TinMoors, who were subject and paid tribute to tho Sultan, were driven from province after province, until at length they were cooped up in the solitary Kingdom of Granada.

Tho last Moorish king to reign i i Spain was Boabdil-el-Ulwteo, or Boabdil the Unlucky. In 1-182 Ferdinand and Isabella, the King and Queen of Aifc-a-gon and Gastile, declared war on him, and in 1492 he had to surrender everything. RUSSIA MAKES A GRAB.

Hungary, which now forms half of tho dual monarchy of the Emperor I*rancis Joseph, was a province of the Sultan for a hundred and fifty year n . Then it was torn from him by the sword.

After this camo the turn of tho Tsars. The Russians, whom ho once despised, have been the Turk’s worst enemies I hey have either robbed him thcmsclvis or encouraged others to rob him. Peter tho Great, set the example, but was not, on the whole, very successful in his wars against the Moslems. At. one time the Turks could have captured and massacred Peter and his army, but wore frustrated by tho. slave girl Catherine, whom Peter had married . Catherine the Great, tore the Crimen, from the unhappy Turk, together with thousands of square miles of. territory along the shores of the Caspian. In 1821 tho Greeks, who hnd been slaves of tho Sultans for many,centuries, rose in rebellion and drove tho Turks out-of tho country. But then tho Greek leaders hogan to quarrel amony themselves, and civil war followed. Idle Turk took tho opportunity to seize tho country once more.

But tho massacres «n<l other hortqr'i which followed aroused Eh rope. Tn 1827 the Turkish fleet was d< stroyod .nt Ncvarino. The combined fleets of Britain, Franco, and Russia took part in this operation. In 1828 Greece was acknowledged as a free and independent kingdom, with a king of its own.

For nearly a century Egypt, which tho Tjjrk conquered in 611. has been part of the Sultan’s Empire in little more than name, and since 1882, when wo occupied Pharaoh’s country, after Arabi Pasha's rebellion, tho Turk has bad practically nothing to do with Egypt. Tho Moorish corsairs who hod their lair in the pirate city of Algiers Acknowledged the Sultan as their suzerain, but. were defiantly independent as regarded all the rest of the world.

Their swift-sailing dhows preyed on tho commerce of all Europa, emd, from start to finish, they seized many thousands of white captives, soma of whom they ransomed, while others they doomed to slavery. When asked to keep his piratical »mb jects in order, the Sultan declared himself helpless to do anything. The freebooters went on do : ng as they liked a. long time. Then France became w«u - of patience, and forcibly” took possession of the citv in 1830.

Since then she has annexed 307,980 square miles of Algerian territory once subject to the Sultan.

THEN AUSTRIA. ITALY, AND THE BALKAN STATES.

Then came the Turk’s worst time. Russia made war on him, and the Balkan States, which had been held ns provinces by Turkey for hundreds of years, revolted, flew to arms, and did everythin.'.' they could on tho side of Russia. Had tho Tsar been left to himself the Turkish Empire would have been practically destroyed. The other great Powers, however, were afraid to see Russia too powerful. They insisted on summoning the Congress of Berlin. By tho terms of the Treaty of Berlin, tho Turk was almost swept out of Europe. Bosnia and Herzegovina were handed over to Austria to keep in order. Roumania, Sorvia, nndMontenegro were declared absolutely independent of him. Bulgaria was created into a principality, nominally under the .Sultan’s suzerainty, but inroality free.

Then in the autumn of 1908 Austria nearly precipitated a European conflagration by formally annexing Bosnia and Herzegovina, provinces which, though nominally belonging to the Sultan, ehe had governed since 1878. IHie Ottoman bird shed a further feather as a result of the war with Italy in Tripoli, and now tho confederated Balkan States, at immeasurable cost of blood and treasure, have stripped it of aU its remaining possessions in Europe, with the excontion of Constantinople and a small strip of country adjacent t® it.